Sorry if this sounds like a stupid post but what's peoples view on this? I'm looking in to getting a fairly new Mini one D. I've never paid a car up in my life as I've always bought mine with cash from the auctions. I notice that you usually have 2 options when paying a car up from a dealership, the first one is X amount deposit then set payments for so many months then after that you can either pay the remaining balance or hand the car back or the other option is to pay slightly more money and keep the car.

I guess with leasing the car you will be able to change it every few years but it would probably mean having to save up for another deposit again. How do you buy your cars when not paying the full asking price in cash of course?

Finance, you then own the car. Also shop around, you may find that your bank offers a better rate than the dealer and to them you are then a cash buyer.

Girl I work with bought a BMW on one of those lease schemes, by the time she came to make her final payment to buy the car back, she could have actually bought a better, newer model for the money she was having to cough up as the final payment.

In the short space of time looking there is quite a few differences with apr. The car I'm interested in is at Peter Vardy mini and the deals don't look as good as the ones I've seen with Arnold Clark. I think I will check out my banks interest rates now and I'd prefer to own the car at the end of the term rather than spend all that money just to hand it back

You can sometimes get quite a good deal if you go in and wave the money under their nose too, they often have a quick rethink if they think youre about to go without buying it and come back with an even better deal.

I went in with a £1000 deposit and ended up just paying a £100 deposit as the payments between £1000 and £100 were only £20 of a difference per month. The APR is 7.7% over 4 years but I'll probably end up paying the car off early. The bank couldn't come anywhere near the deal that Arnold Clark offered

I know you've already done the deal but I've financed our past 3 cars using a personal loan from Zopa. Provided you obviously pay the monthly minimum the loan is otherwise flexible being able to overpay at any point within the loan term on a monthly basis and as such pay the loan off much earlier if you wish. Rates have always been very competitive too but this depends on your credit rating.

It's peer to peer which I like as you are not joining in the high street banks money lending game.

We have the option to clear the finance off at any point and won't be penalised for doing so as I understand it from what the salesman said. My wife works in lloyds bank and even she admitted that she couldn't even get a staff loan as good as our deal which was reassuring.

We're not in the habit of taking out loans and apart from this we just have our mortgage

That's the insurance in place so now we just have to wait until Saturday then its ours

My wife works in lloyds bank and even she admitted that she couldn't even get a staff loan as good as our deal which was reassuring.

I used to work for an insurance company and even with staff discount insurance was still much more than doing it yourself on line with the same company, and when I queried why they didnt have a answer except "thats how it is"
Somehow gives the impression the prices are all guess work especially as you can log on the next day with the same details and the price is different.